Alberta oil exports facing political hurdles on several fronts

By Bill Mann

It’s hard enough getting crude out of Alberta’s vast oilsands using a complicated, multi-step process that requires vast amounts of energy and water.

But it’s also getting harder and harder to get it out of the province afterwards, with political battles opening on several major fronts recently around the proposed building of two major pipelines from northern Alberta, the area with the world’s second-largest oil reserves.

In the west, Canada’s House of Commons passed a nonbinding motion (introduced by the left-leaning NDP party) calling for a ban on crude-oil tankers off the British Columbia coast, reports the CBC.

It’s likely to be ignored by the government of oil-friendly, Alberta-based Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Canada’s had an unofficial ban on tankers off B.C.’s north coast for decades. But that could always change.

The Ottawa vote comes the same week that a group of 61 First Nations tribes said they’d oppose as proposed pipeline by Calgary-based Enbridge to build its Northern Gateway pipeline from the oilsands to a B.C. port, Kitimat, just south of Alaska. Not across our lands, said the Indians. Enbridge has proposed sending over 200 tankers a year to transport Alberta oil to ports in Asia and elsewhere.

The 1300-mile-long pipeline would run through six states, and the Nebraska legislature’s Natural Resources Committee recently met with scientists to evaluate the likelihood of an oilspill in the state’s Sandhills region. The pipeline has attracted political and environmental opposition in Nebraska.

In Washington, a group of 28 members of Congress has petitioned Clinton, who must approve such projects originating outside the U.S., to consider conducting another eco-review of the controversial pipeline.

The letter to Clinton warns that the pipeline poses “major environmental and health hazards.”

The Keystone XL pipeline would carry up to 375,000 barrels of oil per day from northern Alberta to ports along the U.S. Gulf Coast. The controversial, $7 billion project is under review by the State Department, which is responsible for approving or rejecting its construction because it crosses a border.

A final decision on the Keystone XL project had been expected this fall, but that was delayed after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called a draft environmental impact statement inadequate.

Stranded…in Idaho

It’s also becoming difficult to get drilling equipment INTO Alberta from the other direction. A major report in the Portland Oregonian this week reveals that Imperial Oil’s enormous Korean-built rig components, which are being shipped up the Columbia River and are now awaiting overland transport to Alberta, are held up by highway-permit reviews and politics — and are stranded in Idaho. We’ll have more on this odd twist in a future posting. This overland route from Idaho is referred to as the “new Northwest Passage” in the Oregonian report